Financial Advice Archives - Page 2 of 9

Pro Bono work: it is still professional advice

by Tony Vidler Oddly, I was asked whether pro bono work is still considered professional advice, implying immediately that it carried some lesser responsibility on the part of an adviser simply because they were not earning revneue from it. Why would pro bono clients deserve any lesser standards of ethical behaviour, professional competency or […]

Understand The Buying Journey To Get More Clients

by Tony Vidler The decision-making process – or buying journey as it has become known – that prospective clients go through today is complex, time-consuming for all parties, and is also often an incredibly frustrating affair for all parties. It is less frustrating if we understand what is actually going on and allow the […]

Maybe the client IS the problem

by Tony Vidler What you think is the problem is not always actually the problem. Sometimes the person is the problem. Sometimes, maybe, the client is the problem rather than you. Before talking about clients though allow me to use a non-client example. Picture the scene: a partner in a practice is telling me about […]

Compliant Advice: Here are the only 3 things that matter

by Tony Vidler Whenever the topic of compliance, or the “advice process”, comes up most advisers see themselves like this: Everyone is throwing everything at you with the sole intention of destroying you, right? As a consequence, compliance is largely considered a burden. As is usually the way of these things a substantial body […]

Building Your Reputation: Talk About The Elephants In The Room

by Tony Vidler When Accountants struggle to be highly trusted then financial advisers are going to have a real battle doing so. If the Accountants only get rated as “Highly trusted” in professional ethics and honesty by less than half the population then what chance that an Insurance Broker will rank higher in the […]

The 5 Levels Of Professional Competence

by Tony Vidler Professional competence is now a clearly demonstrable thing isn’t it? Or is it? Can an adviser be considered as having competence and incompetence simultaneously? I think so. Competence has been a primary focus of regulatory reform, and that’s fair enough. Consumers have a right to expect it from their advisers and […]

Where should your Professional Development focus be: becoming a Brilliant Technician or an Orchestrator running the show?

by Tony Vidler Professional development is all the rage…the regulators and the professional associations and training providers in the compliance space are all putting it top of mind continuously. And virtually all of them have an extremely narrow focus when it comes to the concept of developing a professional. They want to develope brilliant […]

Imagine if we REALLY were 100% honest with clients

by Tony Vidler We are expected to be 100% honest with clients, and total honesty with clients is a wonderful concept but 100% honesty in all things with our clients would kill the relationships and kill the industry. Don’t get me wrong: I believe in full transparency and ensuring consumers get all the information […]

10 Reasons why an Advisory Practice just stays “practicing”

by Tony Vidler Why is an Advisory Practice called a “Practice”? I think it is because more often than not the business is mostly practicing to be a business. When a “practice” has actually made it then everyone calls it “a firm”. THE common denominator in a Practice appears to be that the Principle, […]

How to create a MORE effective client report

by Tony Vidler The typical financial planning report or statement of advice produced for clients is ineffective. An effective report gets the key points across as quickly and as simply as possible, so that the reader understands them, and is then able to make decisions relatively quickly and easily. It will engage, motivate and rapidly […]

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